cover image Being Kurdish in a Hostile World

Being Kurdish in a Hostile World

Ayub Nuri. Univ. of Regina (IPS, U.S. dist.; UTP, Canadian dist.), $21.95 trade paper (350p) ISBN 978-0-88977-494-0

Nuri, a translator and journalist, offers an elegant account of growing up among one of the largest dispossessed minorities on the planet. He was born into a Kurdish family in Halabja, Iraq; his childhood was marked by the Iran-Iraq war, brutal repression, and Saddam Hussein’s notorious 1988 chemical weapons attacks. His family was uprooted after learning they had become targets of the regime, leading to three years in Iranian refugee camps in the late 1980s. Nuri’s short, accessible chapters situate personal anecdotes—being injured as a youngster by exploding shrapnel, his father’s stint as a resistance fighter—in a broader historical, political, and social context. There are memorable moments of grace and redemption, including border guards who refuse to harass fleeing refugees and discovering benefits of Kurdish identity, allowing Nuri to safely navigate the increasingly violent sectarian Sunni-Shia divide that still plagues Iraq. While the personal part of this memoir comes to an abrupt halt following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq—leaving readers wondering what happened to Nuri and his family in the interim—it is nonetheless an eminently readable work that introduces readers to a vulnerable people who garner occasional headlines but little concern or support internationally. (Sept.)